Dochters

The filmmaker, who lives in the Netherlands, returns to Poland to help her mother sort out the belongings of her grandmother, who passed away a short time before. Daughter, mother, grandmother: the interlacing of three types of image and sound – super-8, phone conversations, modern video – materialise the ties between these three generations. This moment of emotional intensity has rarely been filmed with such gentleness. From the care the mother gives the dying grandmother to the way in which the filmmaker films her mother’s tearful yet radiant face, everything seems impregnated with affectionate complicity. The editing however gives us glimpses of the flaws: Martha’s living afar for ten years, the mother’s fear of flying, which has prevented her from visiting her daughter… And the question that parents don’t usually ask outright: “And you, will you put me in a home?”. With the grandmother’s death, the mother daughter relationship changes deeply, to the point of sometimes being reversed.